pay excess before Admiral will confirm liability

thegentleart

AdrianC said:

thegentleart said:

Admiral has told her that the van driver is claiming

thegentleart said:

It's not a claim (yet). It's recorded as an incident. The other driver is not claiming.

Would there be any chance of you giving us consistent, accurate information? Thank you.

Apologies Adrian and everyone. I meant to write Admiral has told her that the van driver is not claiming. I have admended the post accordingly.

She is not trying to say it never happened.

Great, so we're all agreed that for the next five years she's going to be telling insurers on proposal forms that it definitely happened. Might as well play nicely with the insurance process, then.

Yes of course. She has already renewed her insurance and she declared it on her quotes. ASAIK it's recorded on database so you can't hide these things, not that we would try anyway. What do you mean play nicely with insurance process? It seems reasonable to me to establish liability before making a claim. I can see why Admiral prefer it the other way though.

But why did it "pull out" if it was already moving?

he wanted to overtake vehicle in front of him

So there was a queue of vehicles doing 10-15mph, and your g/f - part way down the queue - decided that was was bored of this lark, she was going to overtake the whole queue ahead, and couldn't possibly foresee that the vehicle ahead of her in the queue might actually do that, too...?

Or does she simply not look further than the back end of the vehicle immediately in front?

There were 3 vehicles. My partner was the 3rd one and the van the second. She was aware of both other vehicles. The overal aim was to overtake both vehicles but doing so one at a time. The van had stayed behind the first vehicle for a long time, giving up plenty of overtaking opportunities so my partner assumed he did not want to overtake. In fact, she thinks he was fully aware of her and pulled out to block her overtaking but I don't think we can infer his intentions and best to assume he just didn't see her and changed his mind about overtaking.

AdrianC said:

Did she hit the horn?

no, she didn't have time as she was tried to avoid him

She had time to position herself to see if it was clear to overtake the entire slow-moving queue, to accelerate and move out, to get alongside the van enough that she still hit it even though she braked hard in a 40 limit (just four van lengths braking distance from 40mph to stationary, while the queue is travelling about half that distance each second), but not time to think "Oooh, I wonder if...", or to cover the horn button with a thumb just in case?

 And you wonder why this might not be seen as her simply being innocent...

He pulled out when she was along side him. She braked and moved over to the right as much as possible without hitting the curb. Whilst it seems logical and easy to beep horn in hindsight, it's actually very hard to think so clearly in stressful situations. Her sole focus was on trying to not hit the van. I suspect she was gripping the steering wheel like her life depended on it and there was no spare cognition to drift a digit onto horn.

Sandtree

Liability isnt simply "decided" its negotiated between the two insurers, this creates an operational cost for the insurance company.

In this scenario they believe there is no claim coming from the third party and so the negotiation is simply what proportion, if any, the third party is liable for. The problem here though is your insurance company dont want to spend a load of money to say negotiate a 70:30 split liability agreement if you are going to turn round and say you've decided you don't want to proceed.

Most insurers wont pin starting the negotiations on you physically paying your excess but will wait until there is certainty that the claim will proceed. 

thegentleart

Sandtree said:

Liability isnt simply "decided" its negotiated between the two insurers, this creates an operational cost for the insurance company.

In this scenario they believe there is no claim coming from the third party and so the negotiation is simply what proportion, if any, the third party is liable for. The problem here though is your insurance company dont want to spend a load of money to say negotiate a 70:30 split liability agreement if you are going to turn round and say you've decided you don't want to proceed.

Most insurers wont pin starting the negotiations on you physically paying your excess but will wait until there is certainty that the claim will proceed. 

Thank you, that makes sense.

thegentleart

I just realised my partner can claim directly from the van driver's insurance without going through her insurance. That way she will find out if they contest liability. Thank you for the help everyone.

Sandtree

thegentleart said:

I just realised my partner can claim directly from the van driver's insurance without going through her insurance. That way she will find out if they contest liability. Thank you for the help everyone.

She can attempt to, if they've been notified of the event, no indemnity issues and have informed their insured that they are liable.

Unfortunately there are potentially multiple points of failure and, for example, how an insurer reacts to a third party being the first one to report an incident to them does vary significantly... most will want it in writing or tell you to let your insurer deal.

thegentleart

Sandtree said:

thegentleart said:

I just realised my partner can claim directly from the van driver's insurance without going through her insurance. That way she will find out if they contest liability. Thank you for the help everyone.

She can attempt to, if they've been notified of the event, no indemnity issues and have informed their insured that they are liable.

Unfortunately there are potentially multiple points of failure and, for example, how an insurer reacts to a third party being the first one to report an incident to them does vary significantly... most will want it in writing or tell you to let your insurer deal.

Yes indeed but it’s worth a try!

thegentleart

My partner spoke to Aviva (van driver's insurer) and he is contesting liability... I guess we shoudn't be surprised. Think it's going to be easier/cheaper just to pay for repairs ourselves. Thanks for the help everyone, drive safely!

williamgriffin

thegentleart said:

My partner spoke to Aviva (van driver's insurer) and he is contesting liability... I guess we shoudn't be surprised. Think it's going to be easier/cheaper just to pay for repairs ourselves. Thanks for the help everyone, drive safely!

You may as well go through the insurance, if it's split 50/50 you'll be paying for half of his repairs and possibly a hire van while his is off the road so you may as well get half of your costs paid for. 

KimJongUn88

williamgriffin said:

thegentleart said:

My partner spoke to Aviva (van driver's insurer) and he is contesting liability... I guess we shoudn't be surprised. Think it's going to be easier/cheaper just to pay for repairs ourselves. Thanks for the help everyone, drive safely!

You may as well go through the insurance, if it's split 50/50 you'll be paying for half of his repairs and possibly a hire van while his is off the road so you may as well get half of your costs paid for. 

The van driver isn’t presenting a claim though.

williamgriffin

KimJongUn88 said:

williamgriffin said:

thegentleart said:

My partner spoke to Aviva (van driver's insurer) and he is contesting liability... I guess we shoudn't be surprised. Think it's going to be easier/cheaper just to pay for repairs ourselves. Thanks for the help everyone, drive safely!

You may as well go through the insurance, if it's split 50/50 you'll be paying for half of his repairs and possibly a hire van while his is off the road so you may as well get half of your costs paid for. 

The van driver isn’t presenting a claim though.

Give him time.